Short sale, I don’t know what I’m doing

[Wilson Lee]

I received a call this morning from a lady in another city. She heard from a friend of a friend that I buy real estate. She somehow Got my number and she told me her story.

Her and her husband are divorcing and they are letting the house go back to the lender. They are both moving out of state and have accepted the hit to their credit report.

They never tried to list the house for sale, they been too busy with the divorce proceedings and the impending move. She’s under the impression that it would take too long to sell the house.

I explained to her that I felt her best option would be to get a realtor and to sell the house normally. But if she wanted to I could assist her by purchasing it through a short sale. I explained I never purchased a property through short sale and read her the Wikipedia page definition of what a short sale was.

She agreed and said she would like to try it. She forwarded my contact information to her ex husband who is also now on board.

Some general information about the property. They purchased it for $111,000. 8 years ago. It is a USDA loan with 0% down.

This house is a four bedroom two bath 1500 ft.² house. The house across the street sold last month for $130,000 being only a two bedroom one bath and 1300 ft.²

Where do I start? I’ve read a few post here on BP but still feel out of my element. Anyone have any good resources? Does anyone think this transaction has potential to work? Is there a better vehicle outside of the short sale to acquire the property?

[Lydia S.]

@Wilson Lee

A short sale means they owe more than it’s worth.  From what you described, it sounds like they have a chance to sell at market value and still come away with a small profit perhaps- although I can’t substantiate your values provided.

To do a short sale, the owners would have to contact the lien-holder, aka Bank, and apply for a short sale.  Getting approval entails being able to prove hardship financially.  Plus the bank will want the property listed by a realtor to have the best chance for a higher purchase price- since of course they want as much money as they can get back for the investors who ‘own’ that mortgage.

If the owners want to proceed, have them contact the bank, but this very likely will be more paperwork than they wish to do, and the home would end up listed and possibly not end up in your hands.

Even if you make an offer whenever it’s on the market, all investors who own the existing mortgage have to accept your offer and it can take a very long time to reach an agreement, hence why they say short sales are not short.

Hope that helps a bit!